With the next gap, Mars said, "For me Don't wait,--naught could be finer; But I'm engaged at half-past three,-- A fight in Asia Minor!" Then Venus lisped, "How very thad! It rainth down there in torrinth; But I _mutht_ go, becauthe they've had A thacrifithe in Corinth!" Then Bacchus,--"With those slamming doors I lost the last half dist--(hic!) Mos' bu'ful se'ments! what's the Chor's? My voice shall not be missed--(hic!)" His words woke Hermes; "Ah!" he said, "I so love moral theses!" Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, And smoothed her apron's creases. Just then Zeus snored,--the Eagle drew His head the wing from under; Zeus snored,--o'er startled Greece there flew The many-volumed thunder; Some augurs counted nine,--some, ten,-- Some said, 'twas war,--some, famine,-- And all, that other-minded men Would get a precious ----. Proud Pallas sighed, "It will not do; Against the Muse I've sinned, oh!" And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus's back window. Then, packing up a peplus clean, She took the shortest path thence, And opened, with a mind serene, A Sunday-school in Athens. The verses? Some, in ocean swilled, Killed every fish that bit to 'em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, Found morphine the residuum; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth,-- Didactic bards and poppies. Years after, when a poet asked The Goddess's opinion, As being one whose soul had basked In Art's clear-aired dominion,-- "Discriminate," she said, "betimes; The Muse is unforgiving; Put all your beauty in your rhymes, Your morals in your living." THE FINANCIAL FLURRY. "Break, break, break, On thy cold, gray crags, O Sea!" "I remember a day," said a friend not long since, "a day as sweet, calm, cool, and bright as that whose wedding and funeral song the poet sings in the same verse, when I stood upon the white sea-coast near Naples, and looked far away across the blue, silent waters, and up the gray, flowery steeps, to where the towering cone of Vesuvius cleaves the skies. It was in the spring-time; luxuriant nature seemed to have nothing to do but to grow and bloom, and the huge mountain itself was profoundly at peace,--smiling a welcome, apparently, to the delicate bean-plants and wild vines which clambered up its sides, and wearing a light curl of smoke, like a gay coronal, around its brow. The bay was alive with red-capped fishermen, each one intent on fishing up his inverted brother below him; the beach was thronged with women, who chattered cheerfully over their baskets; and along the road scampered soldiers in bright uniforms, as if they had no conceivable purpose in life but to bathe in that clear sunshine, and breathe that soft, delicious air.